KU News Release

KU to host symposium on political landscape in post-Soviet Eurasia, China

LAWRENCE — The Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies and the Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Kansas are hosting “Eurasian Security,” a two-part symposium focusing on the changing political landscape of post-Soviet Eurasia and China.

The symposium will begin at 3 p.m. Thursday, April 24, at the English Room in the Kansas Union with a panel discussion titled “Russian Foreign Policy in the ‘Near Abroad’: Bones of Contention and Incentives for Cooperation,” which will focus on Russia’s part in the ethnic conflicts in the former Soviet Republics and Central Asia’s position between Russia and China. Panelists include Glenn Howard, president of the Jamestown Foundation; Vladimir Socor, senior fellow at the Jamestown Foundation; Jacob Kipp, deputy director for the School of Advanced Military Studies at Fort Leavenworth; Tom Wilhelm, director of the Foreign Military Studies Office at Fort Leavenworth; Mariya Omelicheva, professor of political science at KU; and Shannon O’Lear, professor of geography at KU.

The symposium will continue at 4 p.m. Thursday, May 1, at the Pine Room in the Kansas Union, with a lecture titled “More at Stake than the Olympics: Power and Influence between China and Post-Soviet Central Asia” given by Morris Rossabi, professor at the City University of New York. A roundtable discussion will follow featuring Rossabi; Brig. Gen. Mark E. O’Neill, deputy commandant of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth; Lt. Col. (Ret.) Joseph G.D. “Geoff” Babb, instructor at the Command and General Staff College; and Arienne Dwyer, professor of anthropology at KU.

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